For now, though, Enet put such thoughts from her mind and slipped into a loose kilt and tunic, with a wide red sash bound from her hips up to her breasts. Another symbol of power. The body slave knelt near with the tray of cosmetics, but she could wait a little longer. The Great Octave reopened the letter and scanned its contents. Another potential source of songstone had been uncovered, in Chitenec of all places. She’d thought all those quarries had been worked out. She’d been told so. Now there was yet another challenge to her supply of the sacred stone and she still hadn’t managed to successfully raise the subject of the Tokoban songstone with the Singer. Fixated as he was on war and blooding the song, he could fly into a spectacular rage when she mentioned anything that might increase her influence.

‘You,’ she said to her estate slave and the man bowed. ‘I want an accurate report on the supply in Chitenec, and I don’t want anyone to know it’s me asking, so use at least four intermediaries to cover your trail. If it’s rich enough, buy it but keep my name out of it. But if it’s small, buy a stake in it – and do that publicly. We can afford to lose a little wealth for the status it will bring. But I want to know who buys the other stakes.’

‘As the Great Octave commands,’ the man said and bowed again. Frowning, Enet put the letter in a dish and touched a candle to it. She couldn’t let just anyone begin supplying songstone, for new pyramids were always required, not just in the new parts of the Empire but to replace those that grew old or unstable, or where the songstone caps cracked and failed.

The construction of pyramids and supply of their crucial, magical capstone was an honour that could not be handed out thoughtlessly. While theoretically, anyone with the wealth to do so could contribute a songstone cap, the reality was that Enet had spent two Star cycles covertly gathering all the songstone supplies into her hands, and strictly monitored those whom she allowed to purchase from her. Not that anyone knew they were purchasing from her, of course. But controlling the pyramids controlled the flow of status, the height or depth within society of the family offering their wealth to their development. Let them scrabble for limestone and sandstone and timber; Enet didn’t care for those. But for the songstone, for the source of the world spirit’s own voice, its own dreams, perhaps? No. No, access to that must be strictly supervised, and who better to do so than the Great Octave herself?

‘You. Do my face.’ The slave scurried over and began to apply the cosmetics, the charcoal around her eyes and the staining for her lips. Another began fixing the feathered headdress to Enet’s hair with pins.